Are several social media posts truly expressing concern over an actual missing teen named "Natallia Goodman"? No, that's not true: "Natallia Goodman" was supposedly missing in multiple locations, indicating that this is a made-up story. The posts spreading the information are part of a common social media real estate scam.
One instance of the claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on January 5, 2025. The post, in a group called Atmore Area Special Events, based in Atmore, Alabama, read:
My daughter has been missing since January 1st! 3 days🥹 It only takes two seconds to share!
#Atmore
Her name is: Natallia Goodman
Age:15
Height: 5'5
Weight: 125
Brown Hair & Blue Eyes.
She wore a red top, black trousers , white Converse high-top sneakers.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Jan 8 16:23:29 2025 UTC)
'Natallia Goodman'
The information in the post has been repeated in other Facebook posts made in other groups. For example, the same information was found in a group for residents of Wilmer, Texas (archived here) and in a group for residents of Plano, Illinois (archived here).
Lead Stories used keywords to search for information about "Natallia Goodman" on Google News and did not find credible documents or reporting to corroborate the story (archived here). We also used Google to perform a reverse image search (archived here) of the photo of "Natallia Goodman." A screenshot of the search is included below:
(Source: Google screenshot taken on Wed Jan 8 22:12:45 2025 UTC)
Based on the information we gleaned from the search, the image appeared to be of a teen who went missing in Texas (archived here) but was later found (archived here).
The posts making the claim appear to be encouraging people to unknowingly fall victim to a real estate scam. An example of a post that demonstrates this scheme was published on Facebook on January 5, 2025 (archived here). As shown in the edit history of this post, the "Natallia Goodman" information was originally in the post. However, it was changed to display real estate information, most likely after receiving significant engagement. Screenshots of this edit history are included below:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Jan 8 20:03:37 2025 UTC)
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Jan 8 20:03:55 2025 UTC)
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Jan 8 20:04:06 2025 UTC)
Real estate scam posts
Real estate scam posts are a tactic used on Facebook by spammers that employ a "bait and switch" content to lure people into a scam. A post's creator will pair an alarming or heart-wrenching claim with a compelling image to catch people's attention -- missing children or aging adults, injured animals, injured people in hospital beds and sex trafficking tactics -- and drive engagement.
Once a post has garnered sufficient attention, the content switches to push a deceptive real estate advertisement. The wording and images of these eye-catching posts, typically seen on local Facebook "yard sale" pages," are frequently identical, even when the offered property is located in different cities, regions of the U.S. or countries.
The content switch is clearly documented by a post's edit history, which also notes additions or deletions of content. In some instances time stamps on the posts indicate when the switches were made but on some posts timestamps don't change even though the content does.
Commonly, such posts use links that lead to landing pages with disclaimers or false promises and contact information requests that can be used to gather personal data, including financial information, from people who follow the trails.
Other Lead Stories fact checks related to such bait-and-switch scams are found here.
